


A Year in Milan

by manic_intent



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Chefs, M/M, That AU where John and Santino are rival chefs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 08:01:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19103008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “We’ve got a new neighbour,” Gianna said. She gestured at the windows. Opposite La Famiglia, a mover’s van had squeezed itself onto the narrow lane, unloading kitchen equipment.Santino didn’t bother to look up. He was perched on a bar stool, planning the night’s menu. “We’re in a good area. Walking distance from the Duomo. The empty space wasn’t going to stay empty for long.” He checked his sister’s notes, which were scrawled onto a napkin. “We can’t do a semifreddo for the dolce.”





	A Year in Milan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keeping_truth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeping_truth/gifts).



> Prompt by OhPapaya, who asked for John/Santino, Restaurant, Rival Chefs AU.
> 
> I actually did see an American restaurant called the Baba Yaga when I was last in Italy, which made me crack up on the spot and get side-eyed by my parents and passers-by. Note: the restaurants in this story are made up. The real Baba Yaga restaurant is not in Milan.

Aperitivo

“We’ve got a new neighbour,” Gianna said. She gestured at the windows. Opposite La Famiglia, a mover’s van had squeezed itself onto the narrow lane, unloading kitchen equipment.

Santino didn’t bother to look up. He was perched on a bar stool, planning the night’s menu. “We’re in a good area. Walking distance from the Duomo. The empty space wasn’t going to stay empty for long.” He checked his sister’s notes, which were scrawled onto a napkin. “We can’t do a semifreddo for the dolce.” 

“Why not?” Gianna wasn’t even really listening—she’d drifted over to the window, because his sister was incredibly nosy at the best of times. 

Santino pinched at the bridge of his nose. “Our restaurant has _two_ Michelin stars. We can’t end our dégustation with something that anyone with an internet connection and half a brain can make at home.” 

“Jazz it up. Tempered chocolate twirls, fresh fruits, micro herbs. Spherified whatever. Call it caviar. The tourists will love it. Besides, plenty of restaurants end dégustations with frozen desserts. Gelato.” 

“Plenty of restaurants don’t deserve their Michelin stars,” Santino muttered. He viciously scratched out his sister’s notes. “Dessert should be the pièce de résistance. It shouldn’t be a fucking afterthought. You know what’s a motherfucking afterthought? _Gelato_.” 

“Our pastry chef quit two days ago to open a patisserie, remember?” 

Santino massaged his temple, annoyed by the reminder. He didn’t even blame her for leaving. Working in a restaurant meant 14 hour days for low pay, in a stressful environment that was loud, chaotic, mostly male, and as hyper-aggressive as an anxious chihuahua high on speed. Everyone tended to swagger around with extremely sharp knives holstered at their hips like bad extras out of a weird Western. Italian was but one of three languages used in the kitchen, often yelled at the top of Gianna’s voice across the morass. Santino had breathed and lived this breed of chaos for as long as he had been alive—he’d grown up darting around wait staff in La Famiglia, just like Gianna. The life wasn’t for everyone though. And hell, even shitty patisseries could make money off tourists in Milan, while restaurants often struggled to break even.

“I’ll make the dessert,” Santino said. He tapped his mouth with the end of the pencil, mentally inventorying what they had in the pantry. Chocolate. Rosewater. Berries and mandarins. 

“You do that.”

“About the fourth course. I didn’t like the look of the lobsters, but the duck from Giovanni’s isn’t too…” Santino trailed off as Gianna opened the door. “Where are you going?”

“To take a closer look at our competitor,” Gianna said.

Santino snorted. “All the restaurants in Milan are our competitors. You’ve never cared that much before.” He let out an exasperated breath as Gianna wandered out, and found himself jogging to catch up.

Midday in Milan on a weekday was still busy, even in the off-peak tourist season. They dodged the lunch crowd, which was determinedly shoaling toward the deli at the centre of the street. The other restaurants that opened for lunch were settling people onto wobbly tables and chairs, turned to allow diners to gawk at human traffic. Gianna had already darted around the moving van, from which three hulking men were lifting a pizza oven. 

A tall pale man stepped in front of her. He was dressed all in black from his turtleneck to his shoes. His lanky hair brushed his shoulders, and a greying beard dusted his jaw. He was good looking in a way, though there was an uncomfortable doll-like emptiness to his face. 

Gianna smiled, never one to be intimidated. “Hello. Are you the new owner?” 

The man’s glance flicked up to Santino and back to Gianna as he assessed them both. “Yeah,” he said. 

“American?” Gianna asked, now deadly curious. 

“Yeah?” 

“How interesting. We’re your neighbours,” Gianna said. 

The man nodded. “Restaurant over there. I saw.” His Italian was thickly accented, and he didn’t sound properly impressed. He didn’t even sound interested. 

Santino clamped a hand on his sister’s arm as her smile faded. “I’m Santino. This is my sister, Gianna. What’s your name, friend?” Santino asked. 

“John,” John said. His glance flicked to Santino’s face again before lifting to the men carefully hauling the oven from the van. 

“That a pizza oven?” Santino asked, with a nod at the movers. 

“Yeah?” John said. 

“An American selling pizza in Milan?” Gianna started to laugh. John watched her evenly, his face still blank. “You’re serious.” 

“Yeah.” John inclined his head and loped away into the narrow shop without a further word. Gianna watched him go, her lips pursed as she allowed Santino to drag her back into the restaurant. 

“What a strange man,” Gianna said as she sat down at the bar with the eviscerated menu plan. 

“Americans. Don’t mind him. He’ll be out of business in a month.” Santino shoved the menu under her nose. “Now. Duck or pigeon?”

Antipasto

John did not go out of business in a month. His restaurant, oddly named the ‘Baba Yaga’, was even starting to thrive. After a month and a half, the staff of La Famiglia retired their betting pool. “It makes no goddamned sense,” Santino said. At midday, the queue outside the small pizza restaurant was already snaking out toward the main road. “He’s selling American pizza. In _Milan_. Some sort of abomination called a ‘deep dish’.” Santino had Googled it out of sheer curiosity and had been horrified.

Gianna wrinkled her nose. “Tourists, what do they know,” she said. 

“Half of the people in the line are locals,” Santino said.

“Italians can be stupid too. Ignore him. It’s a fad. Maybe in two months when everyone stops being so excited about the new kid on the block he will close.” Gianna didn’t sound enthusiastic. It was the lean season, and table bookings were sparse at night. It was hard to stay open night after night to a mostly empty restaurant, all the while watching a queue on the other side of the road that never seemed to cease.

“Maybe,” Santino said.

Gianna glanced at the cluster of stagiaires peering at them from the kitchen and clucked her tongue, clapping her hands sharply together. “Places, places! You’re not here to waste time. Start prep!” They scurried quickly out of sight. 

“Don’t shout at the free labour,” Santino said, as he put the finishing touches on the menu. 

Gianna sniffed. She’d never staged before and had little context or sympathy. Unlike Santino, who’d done it once as a lark in New York. “They’re here to learn, aren’t they? This is what you want, children!” Gianna called at the kitchen. “A life of long hours for either little pay or constant debt and no prospect of a normal family life!” 

Santino shook his head as he followed Gianna toward the kitchen. “You're going to scare them off their work.” 

Gianna smirked. “We’re their teachers. Good teachers are honest.” She pushed the door to the kitchen open. “I’ve got an offer for one lucky stagiaire. Whoever can set fire to the Baba Yaga will get upgraded to permanent staff.”

“ _Gianna_.”

“…Only kidding.”

“No you weren’t,” Santino muttered.

Primo

“You’re fucking with me,” Santino said as he recognised John sitting down quietly in the far corner of the room. The Michelin Italia Awards was a glitzy affair, full of industry people whom Santino and Gianna had known for years. Many of whom had known their parents in turn. It didn’t often have newcomers. It didn’t often have foreigners. “He got an invite?”

Gianna followed Santino’s stare and grimaced. “He did get even more popular after that New York Times review.” 

La Famiglia had never scored an NYT review. Santino hadn’t ever cared about that—until the _Baba Yaga’s_ glowing review. One of the best pizzas in the world indeed. The article had been an insult. The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana had complained. Not that the locals or the tourists cared. The queue was longer than ever. 

“He’s not in chef’s whites.” Maybe that counted for something. “He could be someone’s guest.” No, that didn’t look like the case. John sat by himself, ignored by most. Some of the younger chefs wandered over to greet him but were quickly rebuffed by his weirdly indifferent attitude. 

It was going to be a long night. Santino drank and tuned out the speeches. John looked vaguely confused to be at the event. He noticed Santino staring and raised his eyebrows. Santino looked away, irritated. The Bib Gourmands were announced, region by region. Then the names of the restaurants awarded with just a star. Santino had been braced for it, but it hurt anyway when La Famiglia was named. It was Gianna who went on stage to pick up the award. Somehow she still managed to smile sweetly. 

“We knew this would happen,” Gianna whispered when she got back to her seat. “Losing just a star, it is not so bad.” 

Their father had only just fully relinquished the restaurant to them ten months ago, and only because he’d been hospitalised. Cruel and vicious as the old man was, Santino couldn’t quite miss him. Still. Their father had been an icon in the industry, and the shadow he left was long. They’d both known that the changes they made to the menu after their father’s death could have consequences.

“We’ll get it back,” Santino whispered back. He was about to say something more comforting but stared instead as the Baba Yaga was named from the stage. “What. The. Fuck.” 

No. That was definitely John, striding up onto the stage. He took the plaque, nodded at the audience, and walked back to his seat. Gasps and whispers broke out in the audience. There was scattered clapping, but the room was mostly silent. 

Gianna recovered from her shock first. Her lip curled. “They’d give anyone a star nowadays.” Her hand clenched tightly in the edges of their plaque as her eyes darkened with rage. Santino stroked her back soothingly, angling his body to keep John out of Gianna’s line of sight. 

“It’s not a competition,” Santino told her. It was a lie, of course. This was the only competition that mattered.

Secondi

Gianna was in such a morose mood over the next week that even their permanent staff tiptoed around her. “Look,” Santino said, “we have time. We’re young, we’re still working on the menu, having one star at our age isn’t too bad.”

“When the family restaurant’s had two since our grandfather’s time?” Gianna growled. 

“Times change. Our grandfather’s menu wouldn’t have been able to earn a star. Just as our father’s repertoire is no longer enough. It isn’t only us.”

“But part of it is us.” 

“That’s why I’m optimistic.” Santino jabbed his finger at the day’s menu. “Because that part can only get better. While our father is dead. Thank fuck for that. I’m glad it’s just us now. I don’t care if that means we’d only ever have a star, two stars, or no stars.” 

Gianna smiled. It was a wan smile at first, but it grew warmer as she leaned across from her stool and hugged Santino across his shoulders. He grumbled and tried to worm away, but Gianna squeezed his arm before she leaned back. “I’m glad you didn’t decide to run away forever,” she said.

“I was only in New York for a few months. Don’t be dramatic. I was always going to come back,” Santino lied. Gianna sniffed. She started to look at the menu, only to be interrupted by a loud burst of laughter from outside. A cloud of blonde tourists were busy taking selfies in front of the Baba Yaga, their slices of pizza held high. Santino rolled his eyes as Gianna clucked her tongue. 

“It can’t be that good,” Gianna said. She glanced at the kitchen. “Cassian!” 

Their sous chef charged out of the kitchen, wiping his big hands down on a cloth. Cassian was another American import, one who had staged at La Famiglia under their father and stayed on, becoming permanent and then rising through the ranks. “Yes ma’am,” he said. 

“Get one of the stagiaires to buy enough pizza from the Baba Yaga for everyone here,” Gianna counted out bills from her purse. 

Cassian blinked. “Really?” Santino said. 

“I’m curious.” 

Cassian picked up the money and retreated. Santino tried to concentrate on the menu, but it was hard to think through Gianna’s furious silence. At least the newspapers hadn’t paid much heed to La Famiglia losing a star. On the other hand, the fresh media attention lavished on their neighbour had pissed Gianna off. 

The minion soon returned with two boxes of pizza, which she nervously opened on the biggest table. “Call everyone out of the kitchen,” Gianna told Cassian. 

Santino drew closer to the boxes. “Smells good,” he conceded. 

“How hard is it to make bread and melted cheese smell good?” Gianna demanded. “Look at that. It’s a mess.”

Santino had to agree. The ‘deep dish pizza’ looked more like a huge, fat focaccia, slathered with cheese and lashed over the top with tomato sauce and olive oil. Thin discs of pepperoni were scattered on top. It looked nothing like a real pizza. “No wonder the AVPN complained. The Michelin inspectors must have been high on something.” 

Cassian arrived, shooing the flock of stagiaires and line cooks before him. They lined up around the table like people condemned, looking at Gianna for guidance. Cassian used one of his knives to cut the generous slabs of pizza into smaller samples. Santino picked one up from the corner. It looked dense. He bit down. 

From a long distance away, Santino was vaguely aware of saying, “Oh _fuck_ ,” in a dazed voice. 

The pizza was perfect. The dense-looking slab was somehow crunchy and fluffy at the same time, and the cheese had caramelised and sweetened in the oven under the San Marzano tomato sauce. The pepperoni was an exquisite match, not too salty, not too spicy. It was one of the best things that he had ever eaten.

Contorno

They closed the restaurant on Sundays and Mondays. Gianna liked to spend her off-days away from Milan. The family house was near Lake Como, in one of the towns which yet wasn’t bused full of tourists. She liked to decompress. Santino preferred to stay in Milan. It was crowded and expensive, but he liked listening to the heartbeat of the city. He liked to walk past the gated arches that opened up abruptly to lush gardens. He liked to visit the opera. He liked having breakfast in Marchesi, nursing a cup of caffè and a slice of Aurora cake.

Santino was late to breakfast today, having run into one of his cousins on his way past the Duomo. As he walked into Marchesi, he noticed John looming by the chocolate display, studying the crowd and looking a little lost. Santino grimaced. He could ignore John, but that would be petty. Forcing a smile, Santino walked over. John turned before he could get close, relaxing fractionally once he recognised Santino. Strange. 

“Buona sera,” Santino said. 

John nodded. “Hey.” 

“Here on a date?” Santino asked, amused. Maybe John was waiting for someone.

John seemed startled. “No?” 

“Buying something for a girlfriend? Just walk up to the counter like a functional human,” Santino said.

Instead of answering, John looked between the cakes and Santino. “Want to get breakfast?” 

Santino stared at John in surprise and John stared solemnly back. “All right,” Santino said instead of refusing like a sane person. “Breakfast.” 

“Sorry you guys lost a star,” John said when they were seated and had placed their orders. 

Santino exhaled. His hands itched into fists under the table, and he slowly unclenched them over his lap. “Your concern is touching but extremely irrelevant.” 

“It wasn’t fair.” John was looking out of the windows at the crowd that littered the elaborate mosaic floor of the Galleria beneath. “You’re good.” 

“How would you know that?” Santino asked, curious. He was sure that he would’ve seen John in the restaurant. He, or Gianna. 

“I’ve met you before,” John said. He looked solemnly at Santino. “You saved my life.” 

“… I would have remembered doing something like that,” Santino said, blinking. He’d never been particularly given to heroics. 

“You worked in a hotel in New York for a bit.” 

“Oh, that.” His uncle had been the executive chef. Santino was meant to stage for a week or so while his uncle tried to get him a place at Per Se. “I was lucky. My uncle was the chef, he fell ill along with his sous chef. Bad cold. The Manager let me take over.” 

The Manager had been forbidding but fair. He hadn’t cared that Santino was young, only that Santino could cook, and he had paid extremely generously. A week’s staging had turned into months. His uncle handed the kitchen over even after he’d gotten well, cheerfully cashing in his leave. 

“I was in a bad place,” John said, scratching at his jaw. “My wife had died. It was getting harder and harder to want to get up in the morning. Even breathing felt like an effort. Number of times I thought about just giving up... Winston intervened. Don’t know how he knew, maybe he guessed. Made me go to the Continental to eat. I ordered pasta. Aglio e Olio. It reminded me of my wife.”

That had been his mother’s recipe. “She was Italian?” Santino asked.

“Italian-American, yeah. She wasn’t as good as you, but. Something worked. I kept coming back. It got me to get up in the morning. Your menu got better. Different. At the end, I think Winston was sorry to see you go.”

“He was.” Winston had made Santino a ludicrous offer to stay. Even his uncle had told Santino to take it. Yet New York was not his home, and Gianna had asked him to come back. To face their father together. Besides, Santino had his doubts about the hotel. All the guests had unnerved him in some way or another. His uncle had told him to keep his head down and not ask any questions.

“I bought you a drink on your last day at the bar,” John said reflectively, “but I think you were pretty drunk by then.” 

“Very drunk,” Santino said. He’d been trying to learn ASL from a young blonde woman at the bar, someone with a graceful smile and a sharp suit. Other people had bought him drinks along the way, but Santino hadn’t really paid attention. “And now you’re here.”

John nodded. The cakes and coffee arrived. As Santino pushed a fork into his cake, something tickled the back of his mind. “Wait. Did you follow me to Milan?” 

“Not exactly,” John said. He took a sip of his coffee. 

Santino frowned at him. “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’? You’re telling me it’s an absolute coincidence you ended up opposite my restaurant?”

“Calm down. It was a coincidence. I got a friend here to help me rent a place. I knew you were in Milan because you said you were going back to Milan to work. I didn’t know which restaurant, or where.”

“You could’ve Googled me,” Santino said warily.

John shook his head. “I didn’t know your surname. Or your uncle’s. None of the staff in the Continental go by their full name. It’s rude to ask.”

“It was a strange place,” Santino conceded. “So you did come to Milan for me.” 

“Not really. I thought it’d be nice if I ran into you again, but mainly I just thought it might be a good change of scenery. Didn’t actually think I’d even make any money, let alone stay in business. Recipe was my wife’s.” 

“Then you’ve lied to me,” Santino said. John gave him a sharp look. Santino smiled, and toasted John with his cup. “If that was her recipe, your wife was at least as good a cook as I am.” 

John’s gaze lingered over Santino’s face, a dying man looking at a lifeline. It should have been unsettling but it wasn’t, humbling but it wasn’t. Modesty had never found easy purchase in Santino, and greed had always been the driving force beneath his curiosity. He set his cup down and reached over, stroking John’s knuckles. John let out a shaky breath. He did not speak.

Insalata

“I don’t believe you,” Gianna said when Santino finally told her. She was incredulous. “You’re fucking our rival.”

“He’s not a rival. Our restaurant is completely different—”

“How long has this been going on?” Gianna interrupted. Her voice was starting to rise. 

“Few weeks?” Santino said, trying to be vague. 

“Don’t tell me. It was after you tried that… that thing he calls pizza? My darling baby brother, it was good, but it is not pizza!” 

“Well,” Santino said. To his horror, he started to laugh and couldn’t stop. Gianna glared at him, incandescent with fury. Dimly, Santino could hear Cassian and the minions beating a hasty retreat to the kitchen. Santino laughed until he was gasping against the counter, until Gianna grudgingly poured him a glass of water. 

“It’s your life,” she said sourly. 

“Exactly.”

“This isn’t some sort of terrible Aglio-e-Olio-themed dead wife rebound for him, is it?” 

“No! No. Christ.” 

“All right, if you’re sure.” Gianna looked unconvinced. 

“He’s great in bed,” Santino said, just to see his sister roll her eyes. 

“Yes, yes, I don’t need the details. He might be a good influence.”

“Really? In what way?”

“If you could steal his recipe, we could serve it as our bread course and get our star back… I’m joking,” Gianna said, as Santino choked on his water.

“No you’re not.”

Dolce

Whatever John used to be, it gave him the means to live in a beautiful apartment in the Porta Nuova district, filled with elegant white leather and glass furniture. There was a lush inner courtyard that overlooked the street with delicate wicker furniture, tickled with fronds. It looked like something picked out of a catalogue. There was nothing personal that Santino could see anywhere in the apartment other than a small framed photo above the fireplace, of John and a pretty brunette woman.

“Nice place,” Santino said, turning away from the photo. 

“It’s convenient,” John said, as though living in a place like this was something that anyone could afford. “Drink?” 

“Maybe later,” Santino said, stalking over with a smirk. He backed John into the wall, pulling him down for a kiss, already hungry. Long days and long hours meant their time together was always a luxury. John’s fingers were impatient on Santino’s hips, picking urgently at his belt. He walked Santino forward as they kissed, until the back of Santino’s legs hit the white couch. Santino purred as he unbuttoned John’s shirt, running his hands greedily over lean muscle sketched with fading ink. John’s tattoos remained a mystery, much like John’s past. 

“Someday you’re going to have to tell me about these,” Santino said as John nuzzled his throat. John made no answer—he never did, whenever Santino tried to bring up his past. He went down on his knees instead, rucking up Santino’s shirt to mouth ticklish kisses over his navel. John tugged off Santino’s belt, working open buttons and zipper with urgent jerks as Santino chuckled and braced himself on the couch, spreading his thighs. 

“That big cross on your back,” Santino said. He let out a shaky breath as John kissed the growing bulge in his boxers, mouthing over it as he drew out Santino’s cock with reverent fingers. “It doesn’t look like something out of the army. More like something out of prison. That hotel in New York…” He trailed off with a moan as John sucked Santino into his mouth, cupping Santino’s balls lightly as he took Santino deeper.

“Gianna tried to ask our uncle who you were,” Santino said. He breathed the words out in between gasps. John had been out of practice at first, but he got better quickly. He’d learned with startling ease exactly what Santino liked. He knew Santino didn’t like being teased, liked to have fingerprint bruises left on his hips, liked to be held down. Santino rocked against John’s unbreakable grip and moaned, scratching his fingers into John’s hair. John hummed and began to suck, sloppy and loud.

“He didn’t want to tell her,” Santino whispered, stroking John’s hollowing cheeks. “He’s afraid of you.” 

John hesitated. He relaxed as Santino twisted fingers into his hair and began to thrust shallowly into his mouth, pressing into the tight fit of his throat. “I don’t see what there is to be afraid of,” Santino said. He smiled as John choked out a muffled moan of his own. Santino took John’s mouth with leisurely thrusts, chasing his own pleasure. Deeper and deeper, until John was starting to gag. He made no complaint, taking what he was given. John strangled whines around Santino’s flesh as his thrusts grew harder, more erratic. 

“Close,” Santino gasped. “You’re doing so well.” John scratched blunt nails against Santino’s thighs, desperate to come. He gagged and jerked back in surprise as Santino was startled into his release, but swallowed the spend on his tongue and leaned back in, licking up the mess. His breath was hot against Santino’s skin, his beard scratchy against sensitive thighs. Santino stroked John’s cheek, catching his breath. Then he rubbed the tip of his shoe against the bulge in John’s jeans and grinned as John let out a hoarse moan.

Digestivo

“The new dessert,” Santino said. He set down a plate in front of Gianna and another in front of John at the bar.

“What is it?” Gianna poked the delicate white sphere with her spoon. It was lightly dusted in cocoa, sitting on a bed of chocolate soil sprinkled with tiny herbs. 

“A tiramisu,” Santino said. He smirked at the look on Gianna’s face. 

“Our grandmother is going to rise from her grave,” Gianna said. She looked over as John carefully broke the paper-thin white chocolate sphere open. The contents spilt over the soil: cubes of coffee jelly and miniature sponge biscuits, marsala pearls, mascarpone cream flecked with gold leaf. 

John always ate a little of everything before he ate a spoonful of everything together. “Good,” he said. 

Gianna sniffed. “That’s what you always say. You should give him a dictionary,” she told Santino. She broke her own sphere open and ate. “Not bad.” 

“How’s that any more coherent?” Santino scowled. 

“Needs more texture. Chocolate shards?” Gianna deftly eviscerated the dessert into sections. 

“Popping candy?” Santino said and smirked again as Gianna made a face. 

“Whoever started that trend in haute cuisine should be shot. The jelly’s quite good. The biscuits… the biscuits will get soggy by the time this reaches the table. Unless you assemble it to order, which will take too much time.” As they argued techniques, John finished his plate and wordlessly pulled Gianna’s over. 

“See, John really likes it,” Santino said. He made a mental note about the biscuits. Gianna had a point.

“John will eat anything that you make, it doesn’t count. By the way, it’s a travesty that you call what you’re selling pizza,” Gianna told John. 

“You say this every time. Give it up,” Santino said.

“You should close shop.” Gianna ignored Santino. “Come and work here as part of the family. I can’t have my brother marrying a rival chef.” 

“ _Gianna_ ,” Santino growled.

“Okay,” John said. He continued eating without looking up even as Santino stared at him and Gianna started to laugh. 

“I’ll go check on the kitchen,” she said, winking outrageously at Santino and slinking off. Traitor. 

“She isn’t serious,” Santino said once they were alone. 

“Was thinking of closing anyway. Don’t need the money. Got what I wanted out of it. Might try retirement again.” 

“In Milan?”

“Yeah.” John looked a little puzzled that Santino had even asked. “I can help out here if you want. Or do something else.” 

“Let me think about that,” Santino said. He reached over the bar counter to pull John closer, and licked a daub of gold-flecked cream off the edge of John’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @manic_intent  
> about my writing etc: manic-intent.tumblr.com  
> Refs:  
> Man. There is so much I want to say about the restaurant industry. I love eating out, but it’s such a weird, farked up system. Currently, it’s undergoing a shake-up in Australia, where a lot of upper-end restaurants have had to compensate underpaid and overworked staff. I don’t even want to talk about the system in USA — Australia has a legal minimum wage and overtime rules. For the purposes of this fic though: 
> 
> https://www.eater.com/2017/4/13/15265868/restaurant-intern-staging-worlds-50-best  
> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/a-cycle-of-exploitation-how-restaurants-get-cooks-to-work-12-hour-days-for-minimum-wage-or-less/article26999168/  
> https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/07/europe/italy-migrant-camp-exploitation/index.html  
> http://www.lamag.com/lafood/i-staged-at-noma-and-all-i-got-was-this-lousy-inspiration/
> 
> apartment:  
> https://www.sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/detail/180-l-1952-p2wre7/via-carlo-de-cristoforis-milano-mi
> 
> The title of the fic is from one of my favourite books, Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, the book that—along with Ratatouille—pretty much launched my interest in French food and dining. 
> 
> The Michelin announcement for Italy is usually in November I think, it’s just been moved for this story. 
> 
> John’s pizza in this fic is inspired by Connie’s Sicilian pizza in Melbourne, though I added pepperoni. The tiramisu at the end is inspired by Bar Carolina’s modern tiramisu. The popping rocks and chocolate shard tiramisu is Ladro’s, my favourite in the world ♥


End file.
